Butterfly Canvases by the Girls

When ever I sit down to paint, my sweet little girls come visit me in my craft room and I hear the familiar phrase, "Can we paint too?" They have their own little easel with nice kid friendly washable paint, but what fun is that? They want to use all mom's cool stuff!!! Normally I'll tell them they can watch or I'll say, "not today girls." But I set up some special time to paint together, just me and them. 

I had this idea of doing some 3D butterflies. The girls were so excited. So I gave them some craft paint and a canvas and I let them paint whatever they wanted. It's so fun to share something I love with them.   We just took it step by step. Once one thing was done, I'd say, I have an idea, let's try this. And we'd do it together. They turned out amazing!!!

After painting the canvas, we used a stencil and some sprays (which you can find in the scrapbook section),  and sprayed the butterflies. I let them pick what ever stencils and colors they wanted. I wanted this canvas to be pure fun and I wanted it to be whatever they wanted it to be. 

After using the sprays on the butterflies (which I just free hand cut myself out of card stock), I let them put some paint on the edges so they would really stand out. At first I thought we'd do the same color as the spray, but the girls wanted to do all different colors and I liked it even better. 

I let them use their fingers to paint, that's the way I like to do it. 

Then I hot glued the butterflies onto the canvas with the wings up, so it's more dimensional. 

Then I gave the girls my markers and let them color all over the canvas and butterflies. 

The butterflies didn't look quite right, so I took some book paper and rolled it up and hot glued it on as the body of the butterfly. Much better. 

Then I let the girls use my stamps and stamp on the canvas and on the butterflies for some extra texture. They were loving all the different steps and getting to use all mom's cool stuff. 

Lastly, I added doodling and some letter stickers with a little quote. I love that it's the perfect combination of their own art with a little finishing touch from mom. 

 

lots of fun doodling

Fly Higher

Dream Big

They turned out amazing. Great job girls!